Standing Pilates Gets a Back Beat: Booty Barre Comes to Burlington!

Posted by C. Jane Taylor in cjt, Wellness | Comments Off on Standing Pilates Gets a Back Beat: Booty Barre Comes to Burlington!

Booty Barre (pronounced “bar” not Barre, like the town east of Montpelier, or bare, like unclad) is a fun, high-energy group fitness class that combines the alignments principles of Pilates and yoga with free weights, a ballet bar, abs work and a great sound track. Suzy uses everything from Bach to Jay-Z.

Suzy is Suzy Shulman, the Power Pilates instructor at All Wellness. She is taking the Booty Barre training this month and is going to come home to Burlington and kick our Booty! According to Suzy, Booty Barre uses Pilates concepts the like neutral spine, core integration, and the coordination of movement with breath for an intense workout. “Anyone can do it. Whether you are fat or skinny, fit or whatever, anybody can do Booty Barre. And it’s so fun!”

Essentially Booty Barre is like Standing Pilates with a good beat. When you take mat Pilates exercises to the vertical plane, you introduce all kinds of challenges to your balance. And the muscles of the pelvic floor are vital to maintaining balance; so anyone who needs to build stability here (that would be almost all of us) will benefit.

Booty Barre, like Pilates, helps the body/mind re-pattern movement habits for better alignment and ease. You’ll strengthen bones, build lean muscle and may even protect yourself against osteoporosis. Doing it all with a beat helps coordination – which can help reduce injury, especially as we age.

Booty Barre conditions the entire body with special emphasis on legs, butt, thigh, calf and foot. Take a look at this Booty Barre video below. The workout is intense. You might want to prepare for this by signing up for Power Pilates and maybe a couple Pilates mat classes beforehand. “You should be sore by the end of class,” Suzy says. “I want you to feel this.”